Information plays a key role in construction project management. In order f
or a construction project to be well managed, data from past projects, stor
ed in a historical database, as well as data from the project at hand, must
be readily available. It is an essential and valuable resource for project
planning, control, reporting, and decision-making tasks. In each of these
tasks, effective management of information is an integral part of a success
ful project management system, whose primary objective is completing the pr
oject on time and within budget limitations while meeting established quali
ty requirements and other specifications. This paper describes the design a
nd implementation of an Intranet-based cost control system. The Internet is
utilized as a mechanism for communicating project control data and informa
tion. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.